Page "Nuclear bunker buster" Paragraph 1

Nuclear bunker buster, also known as earth-penetrating weapon ( EPW ), is the nuclear weapon version of the bunker buster.

The non-nuclear component of the weapon is designed to penetrate into soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target.

These weapons would be used to destroy hardened, underground military bunkers buried deep in the ground.

In theory, the amount of radioactive nuclear fallout would be reduced from that of a standard, air-burst nuclear detonation because they would have relatively low explosive yield.

However, because such weapons necessarily come into contact with large amounts of earth-based debris, they may, under certain circumstances, still generate significant fallout.

Warhead yield and weapon design have changed periodically throughout the history of the design of such weapons.

An underground explosion releases a larger fraction of its energy into the ground, compared to an explosion at or above the surface which releases most of its energy into the atmosphere.